The John Lautner Retrospective @ The Hammer

So the Architecture of John Lautner is quite beautiful.  The concepts of space and the incorporation of the natural landscape around has definite parallels with one of his early mentors, Frank Lloyd Wright.  Despite the awesomeness of his work, the presentation of his work at the soon to close retrospective at the Hammer Museum leaves much to be desired.  If you look at the Hammer's website, you can currently see the gallery and how the work is presented, which is rather static.  The arrangement of the drafting throughout the center of the rooms, interspersed with models made me feel more like a client rather than a viewer of art.  The one aspect of the show that attempted to break the static nature of the exhibit was the presence of video montages of various Lautner designed homes.  These silent series of images troubled me on two separate fronts, first being the odd voyeuristic feeling that it gave me the viewer, and secondly, the way the galleries were lit it felt as if the video content was slightly washed out by the rest of the exhibits' lighting.  The one aspect of this retrospective that I did not experience, but would more than likely change my feelings about it, were the arranged site visits of Lautner designed buildings.  These were rare (only 4 during the entire 3 month installation), and quite expensive (cheapest being $55, and two were only available to $125 donors to the museum, and still cost another $145), I understand that these would be difficult to set up, but they priced out many students and other architecture aficionados.    

more writing tomorrow... later